Section 1: Dimensions

“It is hubris to think that the way we see things is every­thing there is.”

Lisa Randall

“Nature loves to hide.”

Heraclitus

Uinta Mountains, Utah.

We ran down the moun­tain­side as fast as we could. As we dodged boul­ders and trees our feet dis­played the magic of youth by never missing their mark. Over jagged rocks and small ravines, each of us forged our own path through this forest. We were escaping the watchful eyes of authority and sup­pres­sion. This was our hour to be free: to wonder, to yell out for no reason, to be boys.

Slowly we crossed into a tran­si­tional realm. We could sense that this place was the pro­tector of many secrets. At this dis­tance from the camp above, our curiosity was the only remaining authority. It desired to dis­cover, to pry loose that which was sup­posed to be undis­cov­er­able. The secrets of this place were pro­tected by a blanket of mist that danced around the base of the trees. We imme­di­ately began exploring – racing to touch the secret that we all sensed was near. I darted off in my own direc­tion where the mist had thick­ened into a fog that swirled around my legs as I sliced through it. Every time I dis­turbed it, the fog became a little more trans­parent. Noticing this, I hunched down and watched the fog fill back in and erase the lower half of the world from my view. The sky above was tex­tured with a cur­tain of virga – rain streamers that had escaped the clouds but ceased their fall short of the ground. I looked at the tops of the trees and in the dis­tance I saw some­thing strange. A leaf­less three, that was oth­er­wise unim­pres­sive, was vig­i­lantly moving back and forth. I had to investigate.

When I reached the base of the tree I found one of my fellow scouts trying to topple it. Like sev­eral others in the forest, the tree was dead. Also like sev­eral other trees in the forest it was about to be trans­formed into a twenty-foot javelin. Soon, all of us had one of our own.

With our new weapons in hand we raced fur­ther down the moun­tain pre­tending to be on medieval horses. The gra­dient beneath us dimin­ished until we rode into a level clearing. It was a large open field of wild grass. The sun­light high­lighted a bril­liant green, giving this place the feel of an oasis in the middle of a grey forest. This was the place we had been searching for. There was more to this field than could be seen. We all sensed it. Silently we walked out into the clearing. Then simul­ta­ne­ously, we stopped. There was some­thing very strange going on, some­thing that we could not yet iden­tify. Frozen in our tracks, we all looked around. The birds were singing their same songs, the mist still hugged the shadows of the trees, but some­thing was out of place. We had all felt it. With our curiosity piqued, we slowly con­tinued toward the center of the opening. Then we dis­cov­ered what it was. The ground was moving.

It wasn’t an earth­quake; that much we knew. Each time we took a step, the thick grass beneath us rip­pled out­ward. The closer we got to the center, the more ampli­fied the waves became. It felt like a stiff waterbed. If we stood close together, the ground beneath us would depress and slowly fill with water. If we walked alone, the ground depressed only slightly, remaining com­pletely dry. We had dis­cov­ered a hot spring, cam­ou­flaged by a thick mat of grass with tightly inter­woven roots.

We quickly became curious about how deep the water was. So once we reached the middle, one of the boys pierced the ground with the pointed end of his javelin. We watched as the long pole dis­ap­peared into the ground. The boy pulled it back out and, as tra­di­tion dic­tated, instantly came up with a dare for Brian.

Brian was my best friend in Junior High School. One of thir­teen chil­dren, he was lanky, scrawny, and had a deep voice for his age. He was always hungry and in need of food money, so he invited dares. Brian also enjoyed the attention.

“I’ll pay two dol­lars to see Brain do a can­non­ball in the ground right here,” the boy said. “Me too,” said another, “but it has to be a double leg can­non­ball.” We quickly agreed on the terms and shelled out two dol­lars each into one big pile.

Brian pre­pared him­self with a dis­play of show­man­ship. We backed away from the selected spot and watched intensely. Fully dressed, he found a good starting point and began to run. Then, when he reached the pre­de­ter­mined loca­tion, he jumped high into the air and grabbed both knees.

We all clenched our teeth. It looked like this was really going to hurt. None of us could have expected what came next. When Brian hit the ground he just dis­ap­peared. The grass must have parted beneath him, but there was no splash, no left over hole. He was just gone. If I hadn’t already dis­cov­ered that there was a deep pool of water beneath the grass, I would have been com­pletely con­vinced that I had just wit­nessed a person going through a worm­hole or a star­gate. One moment he was here and the next he wasn’t. We were stunned.

A few sec­onds went by, maybe fif­teen, and none of us had moved or made a sound. None of us knew what to do or what to think. Then, one of the boys who was usu­ally quiet unnerv­ingly said, “We killed him.” Another didn’t seem as wor­ried. “No we didn’t,” he said, “he just went into another dimen­sion.” “Stick a tree in there,” someone sug­gested. “No,” I said. “You’ll poke him. He can swim. He’s a strong swimmer.” I knew this was true and I knew he could hold his breath for over two min­utes, but I didn’t know if either of those things counted in this situation.

Just as we started to move toward the mys­te­rious spot, an arm jutted out of the ground. Muddy fin­gers were reaching around pulling hand­fuls of grass. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder what someone would have thought if they had walked up at this moment — espe­cially if it was during Halloween.

Brian pulled him­self out with little trouble and had a good laugh when he saw our expres­sions. When we asked why he was down there so long, he said it was much warmer than he expected and he just had to explore. Apparently he didn’t think we’d become so con­cerned. It would be a while before any of us would dare him again.

After the danger and nov­elty of this expe­ri­ence sub­sided, I started thinking: what if Brian really had gone to another dimen­sion; what would that even mean? I con­sid­ered it for a while and real­ized that I hon­estly didn’t know what a dimen­sion was. I had some idea, but the whole con­cept became rather con­fusing when I stared it directly in the face.

That’s when I fig­ured out that I needed to focus in on the riddle of dimen­sions. Sometimes the answers to key ques­tions can ini­tiate an entire quest and open new doors in the process. I felt that I had suc­cess­fully uncov­ered a key ques­tion, now it was time for me to find the answer. Maybe, I hoped, that answer will help me find what Einstein was looking for.